


Alive

by shittershutter



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 21:17:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittershutter/pseuds/shittershutter
Summary: In the present time, Tommy watches Gibson butting the cigarette and getting up, a fluid hypnotic motion like he is the wave licking the sandy shore and reaching him like he is about to swallow him whole.





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授翻】Alive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464908) by [psychomath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomath/pseuds/psychomath)



> * Unbetad. Sorry.

Tommy gets thrown against the wall in the bar he frequents on a quiet evening and is surprised to find out the faded wallpaper of the fine establishment is actually green, not blue when he looks at it up close.

He's familiar with the trick. Gibson's eyes can do that. 

He turns back around to stare down someone who has just shrugged him off like a speck of dust on his shoulder, and all he sees is the retreating back because he cannot even be granted a courtesy of being acknowledged. 

People find it progressively harder to look at him as the time goes by, Tommy notices. At first, it's all _thank you for your service_ and _where were you stationed, son?_ but then, as the life under the peaceful blue sky moves on, his wobbling skeletal frame becomes an unwanted echo of something society would rather forget. 

Tommy tries to be understanding and chalks it all up to the trauma they all move through at their own pace, but it makes him feel unseen. And being unseen is very different from being invisible, mind you, because it doesn't even require a will and an effort on one's part to accomplish this state. 

He actively avoids the mirror in their apartment, and when he catches his own distorted reflection in Gibson's eyeballs — a greenish ghoul with his mouth wide — he squeezes his own eyes shut, and it's a shame. Gibson's eyes are the prettiest up close, and they burn so brightly when their bodies come together under the sheets.

The point is, Tommy wouldn't notice himself either if he only could, but it doesn't make it any less infuriating. 

So he puts his mutilated hand on the man's shoulder and as he turns sacks him with a good one right where the jaw connects to the skull so each time the bastard feels the urge to yawn in the next few months he remembers Tommy's unremarkable face in detail. 

It's all a blur from there on. From the corner of his eye, he can see Alex standing up and moving his glass from the edge of the table, so it has a chance to survive and be finished later. 

Gibson is right behind Tommy's shoulder. He doesn't see him approach, but somehow he knows he'll be there. 

The tension between the shoulder blades Tommy carries for seven years has dissipated so suddenly he is taken aback by how tall he feels when he can really straighten his back. 

When he draws his good hand again as the man's mates gather around him, he feels alive. 

* * * 

Tommy scoops up a few handfuls of fresh snow and presses them against his stinging face until it melts and streaks down his neck into the collar. 

His left eye socket stings a little, all the discomfort numbed by the adrenaline he’s still buzzing with, but he’ll be quite a picture when he shows up to the typography he works in the next morning, there is no doubt about that. 

"You got yourself a ferocious bastard," Alex tells Gibson with the utmost pride in his voice. There is a drink in his bloody knuckles which he steals on their way out -- it's not like they'll be visiting for next few months until everyone forgets their faces -- and they use it to rinse the blood from their mouths, hissing and spitting. 

Gibson snorts and nods, eyes closed. There is a colorful bruise blossoming on his cheekbone Tommy is going to feel so guilty about later, and Alex’s mouth is a complete mess but other than that, they escape victorious and relatively unscathed. 

"Feeling nostalgic for your fighting days, eh, Thomas?" Alex is fingering one of his front teeth thoughtfully, bloody saliva dripping down his sleeve. 

"Somewhat," Tommy agrees and takes the cigarette out, hysterical laughter leaving his mouth with the smoke. “It shouldn’t feel this good, fucking Christ, should it?” 

“Well, it’s therapeutic,” Alex shrugs, adjusting his jaw until it clicks so loudly it echoes through the dark back alley. “I’ve been waiting for you to explode sooner or later.” 

When Tommy turns his head to watch Gibson’s profile in semi-darkness, he can feel rather than see Gibson smiling a little. 

"You okay?" Tommy asks him quietly. 

"Okay," Gibson echoes. He's been echoing him for a long time now, and while it's not quite a conversation yet, it’s an interaction, and it flows so naturally out of him. "Dress warm," Tommy would say when he leaves for work. "Dress warm," Gibson would respond and kiss him back making Tommy shudder and remember about the scarf he tends to forget to wear.

"Love you," Tommy would mumble into the pillow to receive the confession right back, mouthed into his bare skin.

Tommy still pats down Gibson’s ribs watching for a treacherous wince, but there isn't any. He remembers turning around in the heat of the fight, his body on fire, his soul roaring as he enjoys it, enjoys it in a way he absolutely shouldn't -- and seeing Gibson throwing punches, capable, strong and fucking alive.

And he should be afraid for the man; he should be fearful for himself and the leg that'll be unforgiving come morning for every unplanned step he makes around the broken glasses and slamming bodies, but for the first time in seven years Tommy is completely fearless. 

* * * 

He takes Gibson's busted hands in his, pale and broken digits lying in his palms like the wings of some rare injured bird. He starts rubbing along the bones and the joints carefully like he’s seen Gibson would when the weather is changing too rapidly, reminding him of the location of every fracture. 

It's a ritual they have, and Tommy, sitting between his spread knees awkwardly, a pillow under his arse to balance his bones and minimise the pain, holding the other man’s hands like he is about to make an important declaration, focuses on the task to stop himself from exploding with apologies instead. 

He brings the hands, much warmer now, to his mouth when he's done with the massage and presses wet kisses over the dry skin tasting the salt, the iron and a bit of soap. 

"I'm sorry," Tommy gives up, helpless. "If he only looked at me for a second, I'd..." He drops his hands, then brings the ugly, claw-like one up, flesh scarred and fingers stained with typography paint so deeply he's pretty sure it's permanent. 

"I know I'm not the sight to behold, but I think I deserve a fucking look in my direction..." 

"You are," Gibson merely says, bringing the blackened paw to his lips, his breath so hot it burns the skin. 

Tommy crawls off the bed then and hides in the bathroom then, his forgotten cigarette smoldering in the sink, as he makes an eye contact with his reflection, still strange and unfamiliar, now decorated with a quite impressive shiner, too, and forces himself to keep it for a long while. 

* * 

When he is back, Gibson takes the collar of his shirt between his fingers and tugs at it for a few times. Take off your clothes, it means, Tommy knows. 

_Right,_ Tommy thinks as he leans back against the door to balance himself properly and kicks his boots off. 

His hands feel wooden, incapable, just like they do before the impassionate eyes of the medical commission when he exposes himself for them to poke, all shame forgotten, all feeling of his own body lost. 

Except when he looks up to meet Gibson's eyes as they burn, hot as the cigarette tip between the parted lips, it is Tommy he is focused on. Tommy the person, not Tommy the statistical unit, the damaged piece of meat still kicking around. 

Tommy leans back instinctively under the intensity of that gaze; his bare bum pressed hard against the wooden door risking to get it full of splinters and just soaks it in for a moment, flushed red and looking so grotesque with only the shirt on. 

It is Gibson's shirt. He barely notices anymore, unless someone comments on his weight. Gibson's a size or two bigger than him now, broader, rounder, so his shirts make Tommy look even smaller than he is, eating away on whatever illusion of relative health he thinks he can project. 

It's a bit longer, too, and Tommy concentrates on his semi-hard cock peeking from under it as he struggles to unbutton it, always a few fingers short to do it smoothly. But Gibson lets out a sharp gasp as it falls to the floor, so he compliments himself on the bad job well done and looks up expectingly. 

The city is loud outside their window, but the house is even louder as the old frame of it creaks and groans, the voices arguing, mumbling and even singing through the floors. 

Someone is fucking right next door, too, but Tommy spends years with Alex fucking people in his direct vicinity; these are the noises he’s learned to tune out. 

On one winter night, years ago when Tommy still has two legs to rely on he touches himself with the girl's moans and Alex's grunts around him, in the complete darkness. He thinks about no one in particular at first as he closes his fist around the head, careful and completely soundless. It’s a quiet night, no shots, no explosions; he remembers that. 

Then the overwhelming guilt comes, it always does when he is emotionally vulnerable, the guilt associated not with all the people he shot at, but with the big green eyes he let slip away. It turns into something more profound as he squeezes around his flesh, something that feels like longing.

His arse clenches, spasming, the images behind his eyelids more intimate than Gibson just being there alive with him. He sees Gibson doing to him what Alex does to the girl, hard, taking his body like it belongs to him, using it like they are one; like he has the right. 

Tommy realizes then that he'd give the French boy with the big sad eyes that right in a second, without thinking, without a care in the world about what it would imply about him. 

He can't push his trousers down without drawing too much attention to himself, so he presses the fingers of his other hand to his backside trying to get to his hole through the fabric. It's not good enough, not quite, but he still comes so hard he pulls his hip as he fucks into his wrist mindlessly, hot tears streaming down his cheeks, a pathetic lament for a boy he lost without really ever having. 

In the present time, Tommy watches Gibson butting the cigarette and getting up, a fluid hypnotic motion like he is the wave licking the sandy shore and reaching him like he is about to swallow him whole. 

Tommy licks his mouth, lips parting, and he has to say, he is a bit envious of their neighbors’ rhythm if nothing else. He has the dirtiest fantasies about Gibson crashing into him this hard and fast, and the fact that if they ever attempt anything so aggressive Tommy will be bedridden for a few days makes them even hotter. 

Gibson presses into him, his fully clothed body hot against the bare skin, the wet mouth presses to his until the sound of their lips sliding against each other is the only thing Tommy can hear, the only thing he cares about. 

He wraps his hands around the man's shoulders as he feels the hot trembling hands digging into his arse and pushing until his feet leave the ground and he wraps the good leg around the man's waist instinctively while the other one is left to hang limply.

He manages to stroke Gibson's calf with its toes though, Gibson's broad palm cradling his bad hip carefully and Tommy could cry. Gibson is the first person to touch him in years who does it like he cares if it hurts Tommy or not. And he knows how to angle his limbs that he doesn't. 

Tommy thinks he is going to carry him to the cranky old bed now, but he stays where he is, hand fumbling with his trousers right underneath Tommy's arse. 

_Oh,_ Tommy thinks. 

"Love, I'm too heavy for this," he mumbles sheepishly against the side of Gibson's head. His lower belly spasms in protest so hard he winces. "Watch your ribs."

The vaseline gets shoved between his fingers instead of an immediate answer, and Tommy can be heavy but helpful at least as he slicks his hand awkwardly. “You’re too hot,” Gibson corrects him in French and Tommy would moan like the girl in the other room even if he didn't understand what was said. 

He smears the substance blindly all over them, his hole, Gibson's cock, and Gibson's clothes and then digs the slick hand into the man's shoulder impatiently.

The girl next door downright screams as Gibson pushes in, and Tommy chuckles at that -- there wasn't a competition, but they've just lost, this round at least. He gets a kiss on his scrunched nose -- _just you wait,_ Gibson says without speaking -- as he presses Tommy's back tighter against the door, hand coming between it and the back of Tommy's head, so he doesn't bang it too hard.

His other hand is still supporting Tommy's lousy thigh, and they let the gravity take over as Tommy slides down and down until his arse clenches around the base of the cock inside him.

He is leaking so hard he's smearing them both, messy and wet, and he digs his fingers into the back of Gibson's neck, his heel into his arse, and moves up experimentally. 

And it's good. Gibson gasps and starts pushing up each time Tommy moves down, his strong thighs trembling, the muscles of his back moving under the younger man's palms like the waves on a sunny day, steady and smooth. 

Tommy feels it, seeing them together clearly in his head, Gibson's back framed by Tommy's limbs, moving as one.

His blood feels thick, the movements drowsy like he is under the body of water and Gibson doesn't let him drown, pushing him to the surface. 

He is gasping, breathless, forehead digging into Gibson's shoulder as he looks between them at his cock so wet he is going to come like this, with Gibson keeping his body and soul suspended. 

Tommy pushes the length of it against the soft hairs down Gibson's stomach to feel more of him, all around. And he does come so hard he is sobbing, overwhelmed, drowning in his gasps. _Take me, have me..._ his mind roars over and over until his head hurts and he pushes it against Gibson's protective hand, eyes closed tightly. 

Gibson soothes him through it, hot mouth on his bruised cheeks as he kisses the tears off when they pour and pour, tender despite his entire body trembling, cock so hard it feels like it tears through Tommy's flesh.

When he comes, hot spurts shooting inside the man’s sensitive body, Tommy wants him to scream so loudly he’d make the entire house shut up for a moment at least. Gibson moans into Tommy's mouth instead only for him to hear as it echoes through his very core so strongly he nearly goes deaf with it. 

Gibson lowers him down carefully -- Tommy swallows the hiss of pain as his legs touch the ground -- and they keep standing there, pressed together, kissing as Gibson's come is sliding down Tommy's thigh. 

Gibson catches the dribbles of it and rubs them lazily into Tommy's skin. The younger man would moan if he still had any air left in him. He shivers with his whole body weakly, leaning into the other man for support. 

Gibson then does carry him to bed, arms shaking, and passes out on Tommy's chest leaving him to stare at the ceiling as the couple next door goes for a second round. 

Tommy wraps his arms loosely around the man as they buzz and tremble with the energy that reminds him that despite the disconnect between the new, post-war world and himself he is not dead. There is a difference, mind you, between not being dead and being alive, and as his knuckles sting and Gibson’s heartbeat drums through them both, he moves from former to latter state so naturally he barely even notices the progression.


End file.
